There is another year behind us so there should be a little time to balance what it was like. So many things happened, there were ups and downs, pros and cons and I had even less time than ever.Let’s go…

Photoshop is powerful tool that went pretty far since I used it first time like 20yrs ago. It is also my most time consuming tool. My worklow is everything but barely could be called light. Here are some of my favorite hacks/shortcuts in PS that helps me to speed up (literally… it’s not much of speeding up in real time). Here goes your comfort.

So here it begins. Some time ago a small and nearly village person (me) decided to become a professional photographer. I kind of enjoyed making my own world in photography and I was told by dozens of people I should do it pro. That was kinda tempting. Turning your hobby into profession so I gave it a try. Of course nothing went as expected. And if I say nothing I really mean it. I could be compared to girls who decides to be a supermodels. Practically anyone in front of camera is a model but not everyone is Claudia, Naomi or Cara.

As a big fan of horror stories I could not miss a new adaptation of Stephen King’s It. I loved Tim Curry’s version and I was pretty curious how remake will end. Luckily it was better than expected. So I decided to do my own version of Pennywise – dancing clown. I also recently recieved request from deviantart group CRPhotography to share a bit of background behind it.

I collected some of the most common questions I was recently asked by people and answered them in this article to give you a better example of who am I. Hope you will enjoy this article and come back soon for more.

Life can be ruff. It may be twice as hard to an intuitive introverts. And yes, I am the one. I do not consider my life harder than others. It’s just the way how my brain process stuff and I must admit it’s not making it any easier now when I am in my mid 30’s.

I had the chance to work with Josef twice. Our first photoshoot was his very first photoshoot ever. He succeded in male beauty competition and got into Czech version of Man Of The Year finals. It made me feel so proud because my impression about him was that he should work in fashion industry with no doubt. Here are photos we took lately and the short basic interview with him.

Not so long ago I was teaching at Burlesque Beauty workshop in Wien under www.pixel-power.at with amazing Stephanie van der Strumpf. I should notice that without invitation of a long time friend from deviantart Cliff Kapatais this wouldn’t come true. It was wonderful experience with such a cool people and I literally enjoyed every moment. Here are the results of our work.

I continously work on several projects that some of you may participate in. They are very personal and people are picked by various criteria. If you are interested to collaborate look down into my list of opened projects for next year. You might find yourself suitable for them.

Outline – Simplify

To get oriented in photography we are going to edit it’s necessary to simplify it. It is very similar to learning how to draw. You begin with simple geometric object and then you get into more difficult shapes.

How important is your workspace for you? What do you carry if you travel? During years I´ve been thinking a lot about this. As a full-time photographer I spend lots of time behind a desk. I also spend lots of time carrying my gear with me. And of course I want it to be as comfortable as possible in both cases. If you sit on a bad chair behind bad table, soon you will realize that back pain, neck spine pain and headaches will turn your retouching into hell. Carpal tunnel infalammation may cause your inability to retouch for weeks or months. I went through it and I can tell you it´s nothing you want to experience.

My own health, bad choices and painful experiences made me writing this article. We usually talk about work techniques but every single graphic designer, retoucher or photographer is in pain from too much sitting behind a desk or carrying too much on his back or neck. I would like to share a few thoughts about it right here.

This is last of “Analyze this” articles for now. It would seal the circle. We talked about composition, light, mechanics, anatomy and now we will talk about another essential part of the image – colors and tonality, which are same important as any other aspects of image.

I was thinking about this article for a long time. Not only because it would show you how some of stylizations originates but it will also help you to understand retouching better. Actually it won´t be the only article but couple of them, each related to one topic. The first thing I do on every set of images is analysis. It goes from general set analysis where I pick the best images that works for me individually and in a set too and then I analyze every single image that should be retouched.

Retouching is difficult discipline. If you work with bad images you tend to spend a lot of time on fixing what’s wrong. After all you spend all your energy on fixing something instead of enhancing what is already good and you will not reach the perfect image anyway. Perhaps it is good to think a little before you start retouching.

It’s almost impossible to get 30 good photos out of serie of 150 images with the same light, location, setup and everything. I wish I could tell everyone to do just really good images from the beggining to the end. You are an artist and you decide what is good and what is not. But for sure it’s better to produce one perfect picture than dozen of similar boring ones. Here are few tips to any retoucher and photographer that may help you to realize what to do.